She considered getting up and leaving his office, but that would probably just inflame matters.

‘There should be a clear dividing line between what goes on at home and what we do here.’

‘You are poisoning our customers and their children,’ said Kate.

‘I beg your pardon?’

She spoke clearly, as if he were having difficulty understanding. ‘A large proportion of domestic weedkiller products contain glyphosate, a highly contentious ingredient that has been labelled by the World Health Organization as being probably carcinogenic.’

He looked uncomfortable, as if he had not received the latest memo from Head Office.

‘We should not be selling it,’ said Kate.

‘I see.’ Martin quickly turned to his computer, tickled a few keys. ‘It’s on our stock list,’ he said, emphatically.

She stared at him, incredulous. ‘Is that what you follow? Stock lists? Is that how you make your decisions?’

‘But it’s one of our biggest sellers,’ he added, bemused by her tone.

‘What about thinking for yourself? What about your humanity?’

Martin turned away from the screen, placed his hands on his knees. ‘I’d like you to go home and cool off.’

She was already standing, grabbing her bag. ‘Oh, I’m going—’

‘And don’t come back un—’

But she didn’t hear the rest as she’d slammed the door behind her.

Kate let herself into her quiet, empty house, threw her bag on the kitchen table and slumped into a chair, head in hands. What a mess. What a goddamn awful mess she’d made of everything. She glanced up in futile hope at the kitchen window, but of course there was no longer any Iris across the close.

Oh God, what if Arnie died? What if he died and she, Kate, had done nothing about this whole sorry situation? She’d not found out who owned the farm, nor had she gathered enough evidence to be able to sue anyone. She’d failed Arnie, just as she’d failed all the others, including her own daughter.

Kate scraped back her chair, unable to sit still any longer. She opened the fridge door and grabbed a juice, drinking it straight from the bottle. The fridge closed shut again and right there, stuck on the front, was an envelope she’d put on it a few days before.

Her tickets.

To the Bahamas.

She suddenly grabbed them, dumped the juice on the drainer, picked up her phone and started to dial.

The communal lounge was warm with late-morning sunshine and the windows and doors to the garden were thrown open. Some of the residents had even escaped the high-backed chairs and were outside, strolling amongst the sunflowers and lavender or sitting on the wooden benches dotted around the gardens, sunhats and large sunglasses shielding very still faces, which may well have been asleep. A couple of women, dressed in Lycra, with sweatbands around their grey heads and small weights in their liver-spotted hands, power-walked purposefully across the extended lawn.

Kate brought her gaze back into the room and scanned it for Iris. She wasn’t there. Outside the patio doors, a small group was gathered at the far end of the lawn and in amongst them, Kate spotted her. She hurried over, just as Iris, one hand on her stick, was throwing her boule with the other.